Quotes by Tom Wolfe

About Tom Wolfe:

Thomas Kennerly is an American author and journalist, best known for his association and influence over the New Journalism literary movement in which literary techniques are used in objective even-handed journalism. Beginning his career as a reporter, he soon became one of the most culturally significant figures of the 1960s after the publication of books such as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (a highly experimental account of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters) and two collections of articles and essays, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. His first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, released in 1987, was met with critical acclaim and was a great commercial success.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Frankly, these days, without a theory to go with it, I can't see a painting.

Tom Wolfe

You never realise how much of your background is sewn into the lining of your clothes.

Tom Wolfe

I still believe nonfiction is the most important literature to come out of the second half of the 20th century.

Tom Wolfe

I never forget. I never forgive. I can wait. I find it very easy to harbor a grudge. I have scores to settle.

Tom Wolfe

I used to enjoy using dots where they would be least expected, not at the end of a sentence but in the middle, creating the effect... of a skipped beat. It seemed to me the mind reacted - first!... in dots, dashes, and exclamation points, then ration...

Tom Wolfe

If I had my choice, I would be writing by typewriter. I worked on newspapers for 10 years. I typed with the touch system, and unfortunately, you can't keep typewriters going today. You have to take the ribbons back to be re-inked. You have to - it's ...

Tom Wolfe

So many people in this country have a dual loyalty. They have loyalty to America, but they also are determined to have their parade up Fifth Avenue once a year... a Cuban parade or a Puerto Rican parade - many other countries. So they really don't fo...

Tom Wolfe

Miami is a melting pot in which none of the stones melt. They rattle around.

Tom Wolfe

If most writers are honest with themselves, this is the difference they want to make: before, they were not noticed; now they are.

Tom Wolfe

My idol is Emile Zola. He was a man of the left, so people expected of him a kind of 'Les Miserables,' in which the underdogs are always noble people. But he went out, and found a lot of ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simp...

Tom Wolfe

'Why' is a question no animal can ask, because both the question and answers require speech. Have you ever seen an animal shrug?

Tom Wolfe

If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested.

Tom Wolfe

I don't think journalists should talk about whom they're voting for.

Tom Wolfe

People complain about my exclamation points, but I honestly think that's the way people think. I don't think people think in essays; it's one exclamation point to another.

Tom Wolfe

When I went to high school, my most passionate desire was to be a professional baseball player. But something within me told me that was not going to happen.

Tom Wolfe

In the U.S., the term 'general aviation' means its exact opposite, the way 'public school' does in England. An English public school is private and, on top of that, exclusive. Likewise, general-aviation airports in the U.S. are for everyone but the g...

Tom Wolfe

I have no idea who coined the term 'the New Journalism,' or when it was coined. I have never even liked the term. Any movement, group, party, program, philosophy or theory that goes under a name with 'new' in it is just begging for trouble, of course...

Tom Wolfe

Nonfiction is never going to die.

Tom Wolfe

Not long after I published my first book, I quickly found I was terrible at being interviewed.

Tom Wolfe

My entire career, in fiction or nonfiction, I have reported and written about people who are not like me.

Tom Wolfe

I do novels a bit backward. I look for a situation, a milieu first, and then I wait to see who walks into it.

Tom Wolfe

Author Bio

  • NameTom Wolfe
  • DescriptionAmerican writer and journalist
  • BornMarch 2, 1931
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJournalist; Novelist; Reporter; Essayist; Writer
  • WorksThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test; The Right Stuff; A Man In Full; Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing The Flak Catchers; The Bonfire Of The Vanities; Back To Blood
  • AwardsNational Humanities Medal; National Book Award